Essay

Analyze Tool Impact

When designing, you use many tools to help derive and realize your creative vision. Yet, it is likely that you gravitate toward certain design tools more than others. And you most likely have a “go-to” design tool that you use more than any other. For some architectural designers, this tool may be a 3D visualization tool, a BIM tool, or a drafting tool. For others, it may be the tool one uses to create physical models of their creative concept and vision. Whatever the case, it is wise not to take your tools for granted, and to analyze how much they are helping you so you can make necessary adjustments to improve your design process.

The following is a question to ask of your most-used design tool(s)…

Is this tool a mirror or a catalyst? Or both? It is important for your design tools to act both as a mirror and a catalyst. That is, your tools should help you see your design in its current state (mirror), and your tools should help you push your design to the next level of innovation or breakthrough (catalyst). To figure this out, you may start to become aware of how actively you are designing when using a given tool. For example, do you make best design-decisions and breakthroughs when using a particular tool? Or are you simply copying what is in your vision, without pushing to evolve as you simulate with your tool?

Use Catalyst Tools for Breakthroughs

Note that there are times for both mirror tools and catalyst tools within the design process. Yet, it is also important to make certain that your catalyst tools are being used early in the design process. This is when you have the most leverage to make significant design improvements for a project’s quality, schedule, and budget. Thus, you should be empowered while designing those breakthroughs and key decision-making moments through a catalyst tool.

It is simultaneously important to think about how your design vision and design process can shape the tool itself. For example, is there a way for you to innovate the tool so you can improve your design process? Think about how new tools within the architectural discipline help environmental designers to construct completely new types of architectural designs. In fact, when you feel that you are reaching the limit of a tool, where you are exhausting all of its features to create your design vision – you may need to expand the tool itself, look for another tool, or invent a tool, so you do not feel as limited in your design process.

Design tools should expand your design thinking, not limit how your design gets realized.

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